Materializing global academic mobility through the eyes of program coordinators: Comparative insights from a Romanian-U.S. institutional Erasmus+ agreement

Abstract

Erasmus+, the European Union’s mobility program has been researched extensively (e.g., De Wit, 2020), yet mobility program coordinators at higher education institutions responsible for student, faculty, and staff exchanges remain under-researched. This comparative study showcases a Romanian-U.S. Erasmus + partnership established between Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and North Dakota State University in Fargo, United States. The study draws on (auto-)ethnographic explorations to investigate two coordinators’ roles, responsibilities, and experiences and explores the infrastructure and qualifications needed to facilitate mobility programs. It concludes that the materialization of mobility agreements relies on a combination of personal and institutional motivations, interests, and goals. High levels of individual initiative, linguistic/cultural knowledge, connections, and consistent involvement on the part of the coordinators facilitating the process are required. We advocate for more institutionalized incentives and recognition for coordinators to continue shaping the future of global mobility in higher education.

Keywords

Erasmus+transatlantic mobility program coordination comparative perspective European Union Romania United States

Introduction

Academic mobility, as promoted by the European Union (EU), is much in line with some of its own core principles: the freedom of its citizens to move among its member states for work or study in an effort to increase intercultural awareness and learning opportunities, transnational cooperation, and other social and economic ties while reducing bureaucratic and other linguistic/cultural barriers given the EU’s hugely diverse membership (for more detail, see the Lisbon Treaty (European Parliament, 2024) and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (European Union, 2024)). Established in 1987, Erasmus, the EU’s flagship mobility program in education, training, youth, and sport, is named after the Renaissance-era itinerant scholar Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam and stands for “EuRopean Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students” (European Commission, 2024a, n. p.). Since its inception, the program has continuously extended its goals and reach, and contributed to the mobility of over 15 million students, faculty, and staff (European Commission, 2024a; for more details on the history of the program, see Feyen and Krzaklewska, 2013). The current iteration of the program (2021-2027) “has an estimated budget of €26.2 billion…[which] is nearly double the funding compared to its predecessor program (2014-2020)” (European Commission, 2024a, n. p.). Each program pursues specific foci, aligned with ongoing social, political, cultural, or ecological developments across Europe and the world to prepare younger generations for the challenges ahead. Accordingly, the current program is focused on “social inclusion, the green and digital transitions, and promoting young people’s participation in democratic life,” thus implementing objectives defined by the European Education Area, the Digital Education Act Plan, and the European Skills Agenda (European Commission, 2024b, n. p.).

Much scholarly literature has been complied over the years on the Erasmus+ Programme and how it contributes to mobility, exchange, and study abroad among students and faculty (e.g., Brandenburg et al., 2016; Brooks, 2018; Cuzzocrea and Krzaklewska, 2023; De Benedictis and Leoni, 2021; Enders, 1998), even virtually during and after the COVID-19 pandemic (López-Duarte et al., 2023; Koris et al., 2021). However, mobility program coordinators at given higher education institutions responsible for student, faculty, and staff exchanges as well as institutional accreditations and organization represent an under-researched population (Allen, 2023; Marcotte et al., 2007). This comparative study focuses on a Romanian-U.S. Erasmus + transatlantic partnership established between the Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai (UBB) in Cluj-Napoca, Romania and North Dakota State University (NDSU) in Fargo, United States, in 2015. Specifically, it asks the following questions:

1) What are program coordinators’ responsibilities in and experiences with facilitating mobility and exchange?

2) How is academic mobility perceived and promoted individually and institutionally?

The study aims to fill this gap in literature and shed light on a geographical context that is under-researched through (auto-)ethnographic, in situ explorations. According to De Wit et al. (2017), internationalization processes have been studied predominantly through experiences and perspectives shared by the English-speaking world and Western Europe. Little attention has been directed to other “peripheral” contexts, which, as De Wit et al. (2017) predict, will significantly impact internationalization of higher education institutions in the future. Romania, and how mobility agreements with that country are perceived and co-materialized at a U.S. higher education institution, is therefore an extremely valuable context to be further investigated. The present study strives to capture highly relevant institutional knowledge gathered and shared by two mobility program coordinators to advance empirical and practical understanding of these roles and positions within higher education institutions, which can be said to have a significant impact on the micro-, meso-, and macro-level of academic internationalization and mobility processes.

Internationalization and academic mobility

Scholarly interest in the internationalization of higher education has resulted in a prolific corpus of literature on this topic over the past three or four decades, particularly as the forces of globalization that emerged at the end of the Cold War, and gave rise to an increasingly global knowledge economy, have compelled educational systems and institutions across the world to seek international connections and cooperation (De Wit and Deca, 2020). Nonetheless, by some accounts, internationalization has existed in some form from the dawn of medieval universities, when the students’ and scholars’ of that era engaged in pilgrimage throughout the European Christendom to further their studies, a process that was facilitated by Latin as the lingua franca of instruction and a common program of studies and examinations (Knight and De Wit, 1995). Although the extent of internationalization stretching that far back in history is difficult to gauge by current definitions of the concept, academic mobility, in its modern and vastly complex forms, is still intrinsically linked to and a core component of any internationalization strategy in higher education (De Wit and Deca, 2020).

Hence, this article frames academic mobility within the broader literature on internationalization, taking into account that although various definitions of internationalization exist, they may be viewed as complementary, rather than competing conceptualizations of the term. For instance, an early, widely accepted initial definition of internationalization considered it “the process of integrating an international/intercultural dimension into the teaching, research and service functions of the institution” (Knight, 1993, p. 21; see also Knight, 2004). In turn, Van der Wende (1997) viewed internationalization as transcending the institutional level and defined it as “any systematic effort aimed at making higher education responsive to the requirements and challenges related to the globalization of societies, economy and labour markets (p. 18).” In a subsequent revision, Knight (2008) acknowledged the limitations of her earlier definition and proposed that “internationalization at the national/sector/institutional levels is the process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of higher education at the institutional and national levels” (p. 21). Finally, a more comprehensive definition that blends and builds on both Knight’s and van der Wende’s definitions was later formulated by De Wit, Hunter, Egron-Polak, and Howard (2015), who conceptualized internationalization as “the intentional process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions and delivery of post-secondary education, in order to enhance the quality of education and research for all students and staff, and to make a meaningful contribution to society” (p. 29). In this article, it is this more evolved and encompassing understanding of internationalization that frames our investigation of academic mobility.

Although the focus of this article is on academic mobility within the broader framework of internationalization of higher education, it should be noted that the literature on internationalization has expanded beyond its early exclusive focus on academic mobility in the context of globalization processes. Since then, subsequent research has diversified our understanding of internationalization, often in a comparative perspective, via the dual paradigms of competition versus cooperation (Van der Wende, 2001), through the lens of internationalization at home practices (Alexiadou et al., 2023), through the prism of curriculum internationalization (Shahjahan et al., 2024; Stein, 2017), in relation to its role in driving and repercussions from its use in global university rankings (Buckner, 2022; Hauptman Komotar, 2019), in regards to its impact on institutional change and governance (Kovačević and Dagen, 2022; Wright, 2022) or as a means to promote holistic or inclusive internationalization (Rajkhowa, 2024). Nonetheless, the focus on academic mobility as a subject of investigation has remained constant in the internationalization literature. This is due, in part, to the fact that, of all forms of academic mobility, the physical mobility of students for periods of study at host institutions abroad and that of faculty and administrative staff for teaching, research, and participation at conferences constitute “the most visible international activity and it is in the forefront of programmes aiming to promote internationalisation” (Teichler, 2015, p. S8). In fact, at a European/EU level, academic mobility has been given a further boost not only as a scholarly subject, but also as a concrete objective through the European Commission’s sustained efforts to increase mobility targets so that 23% of European students participate in mobility by 2030 Mitchell (2024a), and the establishment and funding of the European Universities alliance through the Erasmus+ Programme (Mitchell, 2024b).

Against this background, the examination of academic mobility in the broader context of the Erasmus+ Programme, and in the specific setting of an Erasmus mobility agreement between a Romanian and a U.S. higher education institution offers a unique window into this expansion of the Erasmus mobility initiatives beyond the EU/Europe. This is a timely investigation, particularly given that the Erasmus+ Programme has been including mobility agreements with the United States only since 2015 (European Commission, 2020) and studies examining and assessing the impact of this novel bilateral transatlantic connection on academic mobilities are yet to emerge.

Institutional structures for academic mobility

While both sites of investigation in this study are public higher education institutions, they are markedly different in size and organizational structures, particularly in regards to their academic mobility infrastructures and their internationalization missions. This section provides a brief comparative overview of the two institutions’ formal academic mobility structures and resources.

Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai

Founded in 1581 as a Jesuit college under the name Academia Claudiopolitana Societatis Jesu, Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai (UBB) is currently the oldest and largest higher education institution in Romania (Universitatea Babes-Bolyai, n. d.). Comprising 22 academic units, UBB offers approximately 528° programs in the three main languages of Transylvania, the region in which the university is located (Romanian, Hungarian, and German), as well as study programs in English and French as part of its orientation toward and tradition of multiculturalism. Furthermore, it boasts an enrollment of over 50,000 students (Universitatea Babeș Bolyai, 2024). Given its size, UBB has an extensive and complex administrative structure, within which significant importance is placed on internationalization through a dedicated administrative unit, namely, Centrul de Cooperări Interna ionale (CCI - the Center for International Cooperation). CCI is composed of 24 staff distributed over four units, each specializing in specific aspects of international cooperation and internationalization, including the Erasmus+ Office with eight dedicated staff managing the Erasmus+ Programme on the UBB campus (Centrul de Cooperări Internaționale, n. d.). In addition, the Erasmus+ Office liaises with and delegates some of the management of Erasmus activities, such as the selection of mobility candidates, to coordinators in each individual academic unit (colleges and departments), who are typically designated faculty members to serve in those roles.

Given this robust administrative structure and the internationalization and international cooperation mission vested in the CCI, the university reports 217 active international agreements with higher education institutions in 53 countries. In this context, academic mobilities under the aegis of the Erasmus+ Programme constituted the vast majority of all mobilities organized at UBB. Consequently, of the 2005 individual student mobilities organized in 2023, 830 outgoing and 581 incoming mobilities were funded through the Erasmus+ Programme. Similarly, in 2023, the university reported a total of 1728 individual faculty mobilities, 868 of which were funded through the Erasmus+ Programme (Universitatea Babes-Bolyai, 2024). The volume of academic mobilities discernible in the university’s annual reports has been on an ascending trend annually, with an understandable dip during the COVID-19 pandemic, which indicates that such mobilities continue to be a core function of the internationalization strategy at UBB.

North Dakota State University

Initially titled North Dakota Agricultural College, North Dakota State University (NDSU) was established in 1890 under the Morrill Land-Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890 as the research land-grant university for the state of North Dakota (North Dakota State University, 2024a). Organized into five colleges and with an enrollment of approximately 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students at the time of its Fall 2023 census, roughly 700 of which were international students, (North Dakota State University, 2024b), NDSU is considered a mid-size public university, albeit one of the two major research-intensive universities among the 11 public higher education institutions in the North Dakota University System, and classified as R1 on the Carnegie classification of institutions of higher education (American Council on Education, 2024).

NDSU’s mobility and internationalization activities consist mainly of admitting international students and the promotion of short-term study abroad programs (lasting from 1- or 2-week to semester-long programs) for its domestic students. These activities are coordinated by a 9-person staff in the International Student and Study Abroad Services (ISSAS) office, which also manages the institution’s international cooperation, although no public data exists on the number of the currently active agreements. According to ISSAS statistics, apart from the approximately 700 international students on campus, who are normally enrolled long-term in degree-seeking programs, the number of students taking part in academic mobility through study abroad programs amounts to around 250 over the course of the 2023-24 academic year (North Dakota State University, 2024c). The ISSAS also encourages students’ mobility through the U.S. Department of State’s Fulbright Program, albeit the onus is on the individual students to apply through the program and the ISSAS’s role is merely that of facilitating information about the program. In turn, formally, faculty mobility is limited to processing international faculty hires and facilitating faculty members’ applications for research and/or teaching grants through the Fulbright Program, activities managed separately from the ISSAS by an international faculty and scholar advisor in the Provost’s Office.

Regarding academic mobilities under the sole Erasmus+ agreement NDSU currently has with a European partner (UBB), the responsibilities are shared between the ISSAS, which has exclusive remit over all international student affairs, and a faculty member designated as coordinator for faculty and staff mobilities under the terms of that agreement. Although the scope and extent of mobilities at NDSU seem more limited and the internationalization mission is less clearly articulated than at UBB, these activities keep NDSU anchored to a certain level of international engagement that serves its land-grant mission.

UBB-NDSU interinstitutional agreements

Notwithstanding the contrasting approaches and resources devoted to internationalization noted above between the two institutions, the relationship between UBB and NDSU is one that helps each of the two institutions expand their internationalization missions. UBB and NDSU formally entered an interinstitutional agreement by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2012, concurrently accompanied by an International Student Exchange Agreement, the first such agreements signed by NDSU with an institutional partner in Romania. Both of these agreements were renewed in 2019, as the general framework for the cooperation between the two institutions.

Meanwhile, in 2015, UBB, as an Erasmus+ Programme institution, extended NDSU an invitation to sign an Erasmus+ agreement, to promote academic mobility between the two institutions under the auspices of and with funding from the Erasmus+ Programme. The agreement was signed later that year for a period of 7 years, corresponding to the EU’s financial programming cycle, and was renewed in 2022 for the current 7-year funding cycle. The timing of this agreement is both significant and symbolic, in the sense that by signing it, NDSU can arguably be considered among the first institutions in the United States to have entered an Erasmus+ agreement with a European partner (see note in section 2 on the EU’s expansion of the Erasmus+ academic mobilities to include the U.S.).

Since the signing of the Erasmus+ agreement, several faculty and student mobilities have taken place in both directions between NDSU and UBB, as follows: 1 outgoing NDSU student in 2017, and 2 incoming UBB students in 2018 and 2023; 4 outgoing NDSU faculty members in 2016, 2018, and 2023, and 4 incoming UBB faculty members in 2023 and 2024. It should be noted that the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the flow of mobilities between the two institutions for several years. However, post-pandemic, academic mobilities between UBB and NDSU have been on an ascending trend, although the number of mobilities is largely determined annually by the funding allocated from the European Commission to UBB, through the national agency managing the Erasmus+ Programme in Romania. While the number of mobilities may vary from year to year, UBB has to determine how many mobilities it can allocate to each of its U.S. partners, a decision taken not least in part following an assessment of how many mobilities are successfully completed on an annual basis. Hence, the higher the rate of completion, the better the odds for the European Commission to fund further mobilities at UBB, which increases the chances for mobilities between UBB and NDSU to continue and even thrive in the coming years.

Methods

Our exploratory study is embedded in a qualitative, comparative, in-depth case study design (Bartlett and Vavrus, 2017). As Bartlett and Vavrus (2017, p. 41) state, “the goal of [comparative case studies] research is to develop a thorough understanding of the particular at each scale and to analyze how these understandings produce similar and different interpretations of the policy, problem, or phenomenon under study.” As they further suggest, the phenomena to be analyzed comparatively should be examined on three axes: horizontal, vertical, and transversal. In order to do so, we examine multiple layers and dimensions of two geographically, linguistically, culturally, socially, economically, and politically differing cases to be compared in this study. The two cases are represented by two different university settings and their mobility program coordinators, respectively, Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and North Dakota State University in Fargo, United States. In order to answer our research question, we draw on (auto-)ethnographic explorations (Adams et al., 2015) in the form of verbal and written accounts to investigate the roles, responsibilities, experiences, and attitudes of program coordinators at both institutions along institutional policies, expectations, and implementation contributing to global, transatlantic student and staff mobility between the two country contexts. We distinguish here between autoethnographic and ethnographic explorations since one of the co-authors acts as both researcher and coordinator in one of the university settings (autoethnographic dimension). He has been immersed in both country contexts and contributes to this study in his dual capacity and the insights gained from both roles. We explore the mechanisms, infrastructure, qualifications, and mindsets needed to successfully facilitate exchange programs and contribute to the gap in literature that exists specifically around those individuals initiating, implementing, and facilitating such programs.

Participants

Given the study’s underlying research design, participants were purposely selected and limited to the two institutions described above. Two mobility program coordinators at both institutions were contacted and recruited to participate in the study on a voluntary basis, with one joining the first author as co-author. Informed consent was obtained from both of them beforehand to comply with local ethical guidelines. The two participants are one female coordinator, Adriana, age range 40–45 from UBB with 21 years of experience and one male coordinator, Vlad, age range 50–55 from NDSU with 9 years of experience. Pseudonyms were used for confidentiality reasons. Adriana has an academic background in economics, public administration, and communication and has had both research- and administration-focused positions at university throughout her career. Vlad’s academic background is in education and he holds a tenured faculty position at his university. The participants’ different demographic and academic profiles and experiences, yet similar linguistic and cultural backgrounds likely affect their own personal and professional interpretation of global academic mobility. Being immersed in international settings and having worked in the field of higher education and mobility for a number of years, their responses are necessarily subjective and shaped by positive and negative lived experiences as both mobile, transcultural individuals and professional coordinators.

Data collection

Two semi-structured interviews were conducted during the summer of 2024 and collected electronically in written format from both participants. The researchers followed up with the participants to further expand on the initial answers and to request clarifications. The interview guide (see Appendix) was based on the literature review conducted beforehand. It contains 23 questions on topics ranging from professional expertise to practical implementation of academic mobility initiatives.

Data analysis

The data were analyzed using qualitative comparative analysis (Blackman et al., 2013). As Blackman et al. (2013, p. 126) suggest, “[qualitative comparative analysis] is a promising method for providing evidence in situations where interventions interact with contexts, enabling causal pathways to be discerned from how sets of conditions combine with particular outcomes.” Blackman, Wistow, and Byrne’s (2013) qualitative comparative analysis was complemented by Mayring’s (2021) structuring qualitative content analysis, which we employed to code the data in multiple coding cycles and to establish themes based on the underlying research questions. The following two themes emerged:

- Perspectives on internationalization and academic mobility

- Personal and professional skills, responsibilities, and institutional conditions

These themes were present and recurrent in both interviews and serve to answer our research questions. Each of the themes is elaborated in more detail below.

Findings

The study reveals that the materialization of transatlantic mobility agreements relies on a combination of personal and institutional motivations, interests, and goals driving their implementation. It also requires a level of advocacy, linguistic and cultural knowledge, personal ties, and consistent personal involvement on the part of the coordinators facilitating the process. The following subsections explore these findings in more detail.

Perspectives on internationalization and academic mobility

Defining academic mobility and internationalization

Throughout the interviews, almost all references to internationalization and academic mobility were made with regard to in-person experiences, not virtual ones. Interestingly, as Adriana pointed out, for instance, “in my opinion [it] is not 100% correct to use virtual mobility,” implying that a core feature of academic mobility is the actual physical relocation, traveling abroad, and immersing oneself in a different context. When asked to define academic mobility, Adriana further mentioned that “it is impossible to make one definition as there are so many types of mobilities.” Vlad, on the other hand, seemed to have a rather concrete idea of what academic mobility meant to him. According to Vlad

Academic mobility represents the exchange of knowledge, ideas, cultural and social values, and reciprocal learning opportunities among individuals engaged in an educational experience across geographical and temporal spaces. These experiences may be shared by students, faculty and/or staff traveling from their home institution to host institution(s) abroad for a certain period of time, and benefit both the individual undertaking the mobility and those with whom they may be interacting at the host institution(s) they are visiting.

This definition indicates that, although Vlad mentions that academic mobility essentially is “an educational experience across geographical and temporal spaces,” it is also about transmitting different values and engaging in interactions in an academic context shared by faculty, staff, and students. He further pointed out that these encounters abroad are beneficial for both the individuals participating in a mobility program as well as the host institutions offering those. Vlad’s perspective on internationalization and academic mobility not only stems from his role as mobility program coordinator, but was also influenced by his own experience as a former international student. Our data also show that being an international student and gaining experience through academic mobility during one’s own studies can have a lasting impact on future academic trajectories and personal and professional visions about mobility and internationalization. In his own definition of internationalization, Vlad mentioned that this is not achieved through “the mere presence of international students,” institutional agreements with universities on a global scale or the occasional ‘international week’ organized to showcase the university’s linguistic, cultural, and ethnic diversity. Rather, as Vlad explains, internationalizing a university relies on more profound mechanisms and practices that “celebrate and use the wealth of experience [international] students bring to campus to expose domestic students to other cultural experiences.”

Internationalizing the curriculum

Additionally, changes to the curriculum are also necessary for international and domestic students to collaborate and regularly engage with each other interpersonally and academically. Finally, according to Vlad, “an integrated approach to internationalization requires the involvement and support of upper administration and proper mechanisms for faculty to engage in the difficult work of infusing curriculum with international perspectives.” Vlad’s experiences show, however, that the reality on the ground is different and internationalization or academic mobility is hardly promoted at his institution. In fact, a clear internationalization strategy seems to be lacking and generally international students—once they are members of the local university community—“receive modest to no specialized support other than immigration-related issues mostly dealing with maintaining their legal status than their actual well-being.” Therefore, in order to achieve sustainable, long-term internationalization, multiple mechanisms need to be established involving different stakeholders at many levels such as students, faculty, staff, administrators, policymakers, and (state) politicians.

Administrative and institutional factors of higher education internationalization

Adriana elaborated more on the administrative dimension of achieving internationalization at her university. Given the global trend of making higher education systems more international, she reported that the strategies being pursued by institutions are highly similar “as we are competitive in the same ranking systems and recruiting market…[with] differences in resources, performance, procedures, values, etc.” This also indicates that there is pressure linked to internationalization strategies felt by those implementing them and trying to attract international students since, in addition to its intercultural and symbolic value, it can be a lucrative market for and bring concrete significant financial contributions to the higher education institutions. As she went on further, core features of UBB’s internationalization are “the capacity and desire to increase the internationalization strategy indicators both by academics and by administrative staff.” The strategy itself is then “created taking into consideration the beneficiaries’ demand, the existing financial opportunities and the indicators established at university level. The strategy is designed by the Centre for International Cooperation, and it is approved at university level.”

Thus, internationalization of higher education institutions can also be perceived as a financial opportunity (from an institutional perspective) while the idea of promoting mobility, exchange, and cooperation among academics may be regarded as secondary by administrators. At the same time, when asked how academic mobility would develop in the future, Adriana said that “it will be more diverse and inclusive,” while Vlad said that it is “part of the fabric of educational structures in most of the world.” The trend clearly shows that academic mobility and being part of an international academic community has become normalized as part of the academic trajectory of many if not most students. If indeed academic mobility can become “more diverse and inclusive,” as suggested by Adriana, it could become reality for all members of the academic community “rather than a whim of a restricted group of individuals with exclusive access to such experiences,” as mentioned by Vlad.

Personal and professional skills, responsibilities, and institutional conditions

Both participants reported that their personal and professional interests in coordinating mobility programs aligned very well, which appeared to be an important factor in how successful they were in their roles. That is, their personal beliefs and values about academic mobility and its benefits contributed to their commitment to their professional positions/roles since they were both convinced about the advantages for students, faculty, staff, and the host institution of having diverse, international experiences. The study’s participants’ answers show that, given the plethora of different responsibilities and tasks involved, versatile individuals with multi-disciplinary skills are needed to successfully coordinate mobility programs for higher education institutions.

Adriana’s responsibilities and qualifications

As UBB’s institutional coordinator for the mobility scheme in the Erasmus frame, Adriana’s main responsibilities are wide-ranging. They include the

- Coordination of all the activities, reports, applications

- Contracting the funds

- Solving problems and complaints

- Dissemination activities

- Consultancy

- Approving payments and activities

- Meetings

- Management of human resources

These different tasks indicate that very specific and diverse qualifications, skills, and competences are required to navigate multiple demands successfully, oftentimes in another language than their own. More specifically, Adriana lists the following qualifications:

- Degree in economy

- Advanced knowledge in project management

- Communication skills

- Digital skills

- Graphic design skills

- Branding skills

- Ability to create a pleasant work environment (human resources are important and fluctuation affects the results)

- Language skills

- Experience in the academic field

In addition to those, she believes that “social media skills, disponible [being available] to travel, resistance to stress and to work overload” are important personal/professional skills that help her coordinate mobility programs at UBB. Further, while Adriana reported to have standard infrastructure at hand to carry out her job appropriately and efficiently, Vlad had to rely on what is provided to him as a faculty member.

Vlad’s responsibilities and qualifications

First and foremost, Vlad’s responsibilities differ formally in that he is not a full-time administrator at his institution, but rather carries out “a service role fulfilled by a faculty member with specific interest and connections to the country with which the agreement is signed,” as he explained. Thus, without there being a formal institutional position, there are no formal qualifications required to carry out this role nor are there guidelines or manuals to consult on how to successfully coordinate such mobility programs. Consequently, each task seems rather ad hoc and needs to be conceptualized, initiated, and implemented by the individual taking on the role of mobility program coordinator respectively. Since no cooperation or Erasmus mobility agreements had existed prior to his joining NDSU, his first task was to set up a bilateral agreement or Memorandum of Understanding between NDSU and UBB. After in-person negotiations at both institutions with Vlad acting as the intermediary between them, the agreement was signed in 2012 and renewed in 2019. The Erasmus agreement between the two institutions was then signed in 2015 and renewed in 2022, which has already allowed several students and faculty members from both NDSU and UBB to participate in exchanges between the United States and Romania (see Section 3.3). With no formal qualifications attached to this role, the coordinator’s personal and professional skills seem even more relevant and important to successfully navigate its demands and tasks. In his own words, Vlad’s main responsibilities are:

- Maintaining contact with the partner institution and periodically facilitating the renewal of the agreements between NDSU and UBB

- Chair[ing] the committee that selects the candidates for the outgoing faculty and staff mobilities to UBB (this happens in the Spring)

- Announc[ing] the results of that selection, notify[ing] the recipient(s) of Erasmus mobilities

- Notify[ing] the partner institution of the selection results and sign[ing] any forms the selectees need for their mobility

- Writ[ing] invitation letters for the issuance of U.S. visas at the U.S. consular post in Bucharest

- Facilitat[ing] the visitors’ contact and arrang[ing] their visit with the hosting department at our institution and sign[ing] any forms/documentation the visitors need to verify their completion of the Erasmus visit in compliance with the partner institution’s regulations/requirements

- Advertising the available mobilities via listservs, answering questions from potential candidates and waiting for applications

Similar to Adriana’s responsibilities, Vlad’s responsibilities require a wide range of different skills, know-how, and autonomy. Importantly, being the immediate intermediary of two higher education institutions in geographically, socially, politically, culturally, and linguistically very diverse contexts, additional skills are needed that are unique to each of those bilateral agreements. For instance, in Vlad’s case, it seems highly unlikely that an individual without the linguistic competences in (formal) Romanian and English and cultural knowledge about Romania and the United States could have effectively established these agreements. In fact, as Vlad pointed out, very few mobility/Erasmus agreements exist between U.S. and European higher education institutions so that NDSU “is somewhat of a pioneer in this regard.” In order to fulfill these multifaceted responsibilities and tasks, Vlad believes the following skills and competences are necessary:

- Patience with administrative and bureaucratic resistance to new initiatives

- Good personal relations with key individuals at both the home and partner institution

- Maintaining interest in developing these relationships and agreements to keep them going, with the goal to facilitate other people’s access to mobilities

- Developing a good understanding of institutional cultures and administrative environments at host and partner institutions to navigate and mitigate potential roadblocks or challenges

It seems like much personal commitment and connection is needed to materialize mobility programs, especially in those situations in which no formally trained individuals take on this role voluntarily. Therefore, critically, since no formal Erasmus-related institutional coordinator position or agreements existed prior to Vlad’s employment at NDSU and they were both initiated and completed by him, the institutions might risk losing these mobility opportunities for their students, faculty, and staff should Vlad leave the university. In order to maintain this gained institutional knowledge and facilitate such mobility programs more efficiently within and across higher education institutions, “more awareness of the importance of the Erasmus Programme…and its benefits” is needed, as argued by Vlad. This is considered desirable even if the main academic exchange program in the United States is the Fulbright Program (organized at a federal level), making the Erasmus Programme appear less relevant. However, given the many advantages linked to both academic mobility/exchange programs and the funds available from both the U.S. and European governments to advance internationalization, higher education institutions should be incentivized to offer as many opportunities as possible to their students, faculty, and staff.

Commonalities and differences between the two mobility program coordinators

The most apparent difference between the two participants is their institutional role. That is, as mentioned above, while Adriana is UBB’s formal international mobility coordinator, Vlad is a faculty member at NDSU and coordinates the partnership agreement and mobility program between the two institutions as part of his service duties. Their different institutional positions are mirrored in their different academic qualifications. While Adriana holds a degree in economics and has skills in project management, branding, and graphic design, among others, preparing her for an administrative position, Vlad’s background is indicative of an academic career resulting in his tenured faculty position. Consequently, Adriana seems to be tasked more with managerial duties such as funding, financial transactions, and human resources. Vlad, on the other hand, seems to oversee the process of initiating exchanges, inviting participants, and establishing institutional and consular communication. They both carry out marketing and advertisement tasks to promote international mobility for their respective institutions, solve ad hoc problems, and facilitate the reception of and engage with participants in international settings. That said, importantly, regardless of their specific tasks, institutional demands, or contractual obligations, both participants demonstrate a genuine interest and investment in ensuring the effective functioning and broad accessibility of mobility opportunities. They achieve this by acquiring the necessary skills on the job to address questions or concerns representing their institution and establish agreements, among other responsibilities.

Discussion

This study has shown that despite their different positions/roles as mobility program coordinators, both Adriana’s and Vlad’s contributions to their institution’s academic mobility and exchanges as well as internationalization are very important. Their tasks and responsibilities are wide-ranging, complex, and constantly evolve due to external factors such as changes in government, global health crises, or financial restrictions imposed by the university or other stakeholders. As Vlad’s accounts of his experiences of being a mobility program coordinator in addition to his faculty member position have shown, these tasks and responsibilities are sometimes even carried out without guidance, supervision, or institutional guidelines. This is why it is crucial to capture this institutional knowledge and share it with colleagues wishing to also establish mobility agreements with other countries and/or at other institutions. This study is a first step in raising awareness of the underlying processes and academic mobility landscapes of the U.S. compared to Europe/EU. As Knight (2011) and more recently Dias et al. (2021) have argued, however, it is the higher education institutions’ responsibility and in their interest to lay out clearly defined internationalization strategies and plan and monitor their mobility activities. Dias et al. (2021) further make three managerial recommendations to maximize the potential and increase the benefits of internationalization that are in line with this study’s findings:

- Mobility partners should be strategically selected (and balanced) to achieve different but complementary objectives: (i) acquisition of new knowledge, adoption of innovative educational practices…(ii) raising of international talent, and dissemination of knowledge and key university values.

- Faculty mobility should be carefully planned to maximize its full potential in terms of the dissemination of existent knowledge, appropriation of new knowledge and establishment of joint research projects and joint degrees, taking into consideration that good matching of research interests and continuity of contacts is very relevant for these purposes;

- Clear strategies and concrete management tools should be implemented to maximize the internal impact of mobility activities. (p. 91-92)

Clear mobility and internationalization strategies are absolutely key and can facilitate the coordination of exchange programs for all stakeholders involved. It can also help create standardized institutional procedures with clearly defined guidelines to follow, which can make it easier for other interested individuals to take on the role of program coordinators. Further, greater institutional awareness of those (existing) mobility programs through strategies and other policy documents can help increase recognition for their coordinators. This is considered important since, as Vlad’s account shows, he took on this role voluntarily due to his own interest in and connection to Romania, yet he receives no remuneration or other institutional incentives (other than a one-time travel grant to visit UBB as its official partner representative for its Erasmus agreement with NDSU). Similarly, although Adriana is formally employed to coordinate mobility programs at UBB, she seems to be intrinsically motivated and get satisfaction out of high numbers of exchanges for students, faculty, and staff as well as the general advantages that international encounters and cooperation in the academic setting can bring. Therefore, she does not receive any other institutional recognition either. This study argues that, given the universities’ benefits from internationalization strategies, international student enrollment, transnational cooperation for research, and the increase in linguistic, cultural, and ethnic diversity at the home institution, more support and scaffolding mechanisms should be implemented and institutional incentives created for mobility program coordinators. Put differently, the benefits are obvious for participating students, faculty, and staff as well as home and host institutions: increased academic, linguistic, and cultural knowledge, international study and teaching experiences, joint degrees, transnational networks, social skills, accreditation advantages, and more diversity on all levels of higher education institutions, to name a few. Yet, it remains less clear at the institutional level for those managing and coordinating the programs to what extent their work is valued (especially so if it is a voluntary/service role) and how they can actively benefit from the many advantages they provide to students, faculty, staff and institutions alike.

Conclusion

As the collected information on both country contexts, the data on both institution’s academic mobility as well as the two coordinators’ perspectives on and experiences with mobility and exchange reveal, internationalization is today’s reality at higher education institutions and wider society as a whole. While certain mechanisms of internationalization happen autonomously and sometimes go unnoticed, others require active management and purposeful intervention from policymakers, administrators, or other individuals involved. This is especially the case if we—as this study does—view internationalization as enrichment, as a tool “to enhance the quality of education and research…and to make a meaningful contribution to society” (De Wit et al., 2015, p. 29; see above). Comparative studies showcasing successful transatlantic mobility agreements such as this one are in themselves proof of capacitating internationalized academic practices and directly result from meaningful international collaborations by the participants and the co-authors. Given the study’s exploratory nature and case study research design involving two higher education institutions in two different country contexts, it does not present findings that are generalizable even for those two contexts or beyond. Future studies can expand on the study’s findings by adding other geographical contexts as well as perspectives shared by other important stakeholders involved in decision-making processes at higher education institutions (e.g., university presidents, provosts, and politicians). Materializing global academic mobility is indeed both a laborious and important endeavor that significantly shapes and diversifies academic experiences at university at home and abroad. It is time to better understand and recognize those individuals who successfully coordinate mobility programs and thus contribute to such rich and meaningful international experiences for students, staff, and faculty. Finally, a stronger emphasis on mobility program coordinators is also warranted given that internationalization of higher education is shifting away from “its strong focus on a small elite of mobile students, faculty, administrators, and programs toward internationalization at home for all members of the academic community” (De Wit and Altbach, 2021, p. 44). In order to accommodate this shift, respond to societal factors such as climate and health crises and armed conflicts, and be as inclusive as possible for all members of the academic community, internationalization strategies need to be adapted and coordinators trained accordingly. Higher education institutions can contribute to this development sustainably and equitably by internationalizing the curriculum, embracing the linguistic, cultural, social, and ethnic diversity on campus, and integrating global, regional, and local dimensions of internationalization to create academic mobility experiences for all.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was partly supported by the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.

Correction (November 2024):

The Funding section in the article has been added since its original publication.

ORCID iDs

Anna Becker

Florin D. Salajan

Appendix

Author biographies

Anna Becker is Assistant Professor and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in the Institute of Slavic Studies/Linguistics at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. She received her Ph.D. in Education and a Diploma of Advanced Studies in higher education and educational technology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Her research is at the intersection of applied linguistics and education and focuses on multilingualism in schools and society, identity, migration/mobility, policy, and research-practice relationships from a comparative perspective. Anna’s work has appeared in Applied Linguistics, International Journal of Multilingualism, Prospects, and International Journal of Academic Development. She is managing editor of European Education.

Florin D Salajan is Professor in the School of Education at North Dakota State University, Fargo, USA. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in comparative and international education, educational studies and teacher education. His research expertise is in the field of Comparative and International Education (CIE), within which he focuses on several areas of inquiry, including comparative regionalism in education, higher education policy, higher education governance, European/EU educational policy, the internationalization of higher education, post-foundational studies (i.e., assemblage theory, actor-network theory), academic mobility, and teacher education in comparative perspective. His work has appeared in journals such as the Comparative Education Review, Compare, European Journal of Education, European Educational Research Journal, European Journal of Higher Education, and Educational Policy. He is co-editor-in-chief of the Comparative Education Review.

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